ANIMAL COMMUNICATION 



the deer and the moose and the black bear and the 

 beaver of the Pacific slope are almost identical in 

 their habits and traits with those of the Atlantic 

 slope. 



In my observations of the birds of the far West, 

 I went wrong in my reckoning but once : the West- 

 ern meadowlark has a new song. How or where he 

 got it is a mystery; it seems to be in some way the 

 gift of those great, smooth, flowery, treeless, dimpled 

 hills. But the swallow was famiUar, and the robin 

 and the wren and the highhole, while the wood- 

 chuck I saw and heard in Wyoming might have 

 been th^' chuck " of my native hills. The eagle is 

 an eagle the world over. When I was a boy I saw, 

 one autumn day, an eagle descend with extended 

 talons upon the backs of a herd of young cattle that 

 were accompanied by a cosset-sheep and were feed- 

 ing upon a high hill. The object of the eagle seemed 

 to be to separate the one sheep from the cattle, or to 

 frighten them all into breaking their necks in trying 

 to escape him. But neither result did he achieve. 

 In the Yellowstone Park, President Roosevelt and 

 Major Pitcher saw a golden eagle trying the same 

 tactics upon a herd of elk that contained one yearling. 

 The eagle doubtless had his eye upon the yearling, 

 though he would probably have been quite satis- 

 fied to have driven one of the older ones down a 

 precipice. His chances of a dinner would have been 

 equally good. 



103 



